Peter Dent has published many books of poetry, including translations from Sanskrit, Urdu and other languages. He is editor/publisher of Interim Press, and has edited collections of essays on George Oppen and Lorine Niedecker. He was born in Forest Gate, London in 1938, and until recently was a village schoolteacher in Devon. He is now a full-time writer.

'Settlement' is a sequence of poems from a distinguished practitioner whose poetic ‘explores a meditative sculpting of language in a quietly generous and understated way.’ (Andy Brown, Poetry Quarterly Review)

To buy

Read the extract below:

COMING IN

To stardom and elision song that
No-one knows persuasive detail of
A steady climb unnavigating words
Now in it for the long haul cloud-lit
Margins crossed life levelling out

Soft soft velleities high altitude
A stream of text its glass wall
Crazed in questions knowing nothing
Doing celebrates one observation
Frosting on a wing and a prayer

Suite sky-blue its genius loci all
A flutter in the scheme of things
Of worth flaps down reveals
An airy dispensation calling falls
As something out of nothing fades

Mauve in the eyes the distance just
A chemical reaction all four engines
Drone with memory a flashing light
For automatic incident quick shift to
Escape code (angels) go to green